Chapter 44: After What Occurred

Mllhild:
I’ve got to apologize to Ensig and the readers. I had so much free time and just kept procrastinating until I noticed that Monday had already passed. I will try to manage my time better to prevent that from happening again.

And that enigmatic presence is coming towards us at frightening speed. Perhaps it’s aiming at Fran? No, the idiot Viscount still counts as a Noble, so maybe he’s the target?

Well, anyway, this is no time to be careless.

「W-Why is your sword still drawn?! D-Do you intend to kill me?!」

For some reason Auguste is being noisy. Thinking about it, it’d be bothersome if he became a hindrance during the fight, so let’s have him be quiet for now. Lv3 Dark Magic: 『Mind・Lost』. It’s a spell that steals the target’s consciousness, causing them to faint. My guess is that this guy won’t have any resistance.

「Ah…….?」

*thmp*

Moving the collapsed Viscount to the side, we remain waiting for a few tens of seconds, and what showed itself was a strange half-translucent thing. How to describe it… It’s like a water sphere that keeps winding and changing its form while floating in the air.

「Miss Fran, you haven’t killed him, right?」
「?」

Suddenly, it started talking. Wait, it’s not guaranteed that it’s actually talking, as there isn’t any evidence of it having a mouth — let alone a face. Still, I think that it’s talking. Its voice seems familiar, too.

「Guild Master?」
「That’s right. Ah, is this your first time seeing one of these? This is one of the kinds of Spirits I use. Please, be at ease.」
「Spirit… First time seeing one.」

It’s also my first time coming across something like this. How should I say this… It’s a bit different from what I imagined. I had thought that Spirits would have a more humanoid appearance — something like a Sylph or an Undine.

It seems Fran was thinking along similar lines.

「Somehow, strange」
「What is strange! To call it strange… This child is an Intermediate level Spirit, therefore is has no human appearance. However, this child is also cute by all means you know!]
「Cuter ones: better.」
「The ones with humanoid appearances are Superior Spirits. There is no way someone would summon such a being for anything other than combat.」

Ah, so Spirits with humanoid appearance are Superior Spirits. Furthermore, the Guild Master is able to summon ones like that. This one’s only an Intermediate level, but it already has a lot of magical power, so just how powerful would a superior one be, I wonder?

If he can have several Spirits summoned simultaneously, then he’s quite the force to be reckoned with… The Guild Master is already tremendously strong all by himself, so with the addition of Spirits, wouldn’t it be a bit out of hand? Well, I guess that’s to be expected from a Guild Master.

「What did you want?」
「Oops, that’s right. I received information that Viscount Auguste left the town chasing after you.」

That only just happened… He has some pretty good ears.

「The gatekeeper, Sir Dert, kindly notified me. It was something along the lines of ‘Viscount Auguste went out chasing after her, will she be alright?’.」

Dert, I’m sorry for having thought that you might be a lolicon. You were just a good person.

「Nn. He appeared.」
「As I thought! An appeal to the Guild came in about securing the Viscount behind the scenes. You didn’t kill him, right? Right? Erm, maybe you accidentally killed him? That sure would be troublesome!」
「Didn’t kill.」
「R-Really? Good! Then, I’d like to take him off your hands. Of course, you won’t be handing him over for free.」
「Okay.」
「Really? Thank you! Well then, I will immediately make my way towards your location, so could you guard him for the time being?」
「Nn.」
「Then, excuse me!」

At with the Guild Master’s words, the Spirit’s figure disappeared. It seems that it was used in place of a messenger.

10 minutes later, the figure of the Guild Master appeared. Pretty fast. Seem like he put quite a bit of effort into coming out here.

The Adventurers the Guild Master brought along lifted the Viscount up and carried him off.

「Where will he go?」
「Ah, to the source of the request: Count Olmës[E1].」

That’s a name I haven’t heard yet. Who is he?

「Count Olmës is Viscounts Auguste’s esteemed father.」
「Father detaining his child?」
「Yes. I would like this to remain between just us, but from the start Viscount Auguste had a problematic personality. Still, for the sake of possessing the Law of Lies Skill, Count Olmës didn’t punish him, but instead used him.」
「Nn.」
「However… A few days ago, the Skill suddenly vanished. The reason is unknown, as it’s quite an unusual situation. Well, it’s possible that because he only used his Skill for worthless things, one of the Gods punished him.」

Hmmmm, he was given a punishment alright. Therefore, it’d be fine to be seen like that.

「Anyways, how he ended up after losing the Skill left even me astonished. He was the type to use the Skill to distinguish truth from lies with whoever he met, so when it was lost, it appears he became unable to trust anyone anymore.」

I see. If a Skill you had since birth was lost, then what would become of you? In his case, he became distrustful of other humans. Well, it wasn’t that simple, of course. It was more along the lines of completely breaking.

I had only thought that I obtained a convenient Skill, but… I should refrain from using it as much as possible. I don’t want to become like the foolish viscount. Thinking that I’d be alright so long as I had that Skill… I’m not special enough for something like that to become reality.

「A few days prior to the discovery he also caused problems towards members of the Royal House, who were visiting for an inspection. Disregarding all semblances of etiquette, he grabbed at them and started shouting not to tell lies in front of an audience.」

「And, while under house arrest, he slipped out of his room and hid himself. On that occasion, it seems that he took quite the sum of money with him… Most of it, he apparently used. We tracked his spending all the way to the place he bought some expensive armor.」

In all likelihood, that was done under the influence of Gyuran. Then, after catching Fran he intended to abandon Aressa and escape… As if this idiotic noble would be able to pull that off.

「In Count Olmës case, he doesn’t want this ordeal to breed a large commotion. And so, before Viscount Auguste caused any more uproars, he came requesting to have him secured in secret.]
「Secret?」
「Correct. This is my personal opinion, but I believe he’s concealed the fact that his son lost the Skill and plans to make use of it in some way. Whether he plans on directly manipulating him, or perhaps plans on using some manner of medical treatment to get the Skill back remains to be seen, but… For the time being, he wants to restrain the Viscount. And so, as to prevent the exposure of this incident, the Count wanted to proceed with the highest possible degree of secrecy. It’s something along this lines.」

Hm Hmm… So in other words… Hush money has been prepared?

「*Jiiー*[M1]」
「…… Don’t stare so much. You have the privilege of having this treated as an accomplished commission with a bonus properly added on top.」
「Nn. Of course.」
「In exchange… You already know, right?」
「Mouth: sealed.」

「Haa. Truly, I beg of you: keep it a secret. The other party is a powerful Noble after all. If he’s angered various troubles are sure to follow.」

We also want to be spared from being dragged into the family troubles of Nobility. Even if we weren’t asked, there’s no way we’d go around spreading rumors.

「Well, in regards to the Viscount’s personal effects I was told there was no need to recover them, so don’t worry.」

It seems that it’s been concluded that we plundered the equipment alongside and a large sum of money. Er, it’s a bit different, you know?

… It seems our debt towards the Guild Master has increased.

Afterwards, we made the decision to keep Fran’s name from the Count. For such a powerful Noble, I doubt he’d have interest in the name of a commoner. It’d be really unlikely, right? Still, this is just in case.

By the way, the commission fee alongside the hush money added up to 200,000Gorudo, so all of a sudden our money doubled.

As one would expect of a Noble’s commission. Their sense of money must be strange indeed.

I checked for a new chapter after waking up and there was none.
I then got breakfast, sat in front of my computer and checked my email and saw that there was a new chapter.
Today may have the potential to be a good day.

He was gathered so that he wouldn’t become a Zombie. So, instead of being on the ground, Gyuran’s new home is the seemingly-endless abyss filled with Poisonous Swamp Water, Monster Corpses, random items looted from Goblins, money, a year’s supply of god-level Food, and other random things.

I would assume it doesn’t look like anything. If time is speed wherever he sends things it’d be more accurate to think that dimensional storage just teleports the item through time from the moment you store it to the moment and position you take it out, without it actually being anywhere in the intervening period. If the ability doesn’t shoot everything it when the user dies then for intents and purposes the stuff stored is eradicated utterly.

1) Of course he already know that his son lost his skill. After all he used his influence to conceal that fact in order to make use of his son.
2) So what if he meet fran? Even if he magically have appraisal skill, he can’t read appraisal concealment of sword-shishou that conceal Fran too.
3) Even if he somewhat magically can read through appraisal concealment, Fran only have etiquete from him, which don’t really such unique. World of lies belong to sword-shishou

Yeah. The stupid count only suffered from losing the skill because he’s an arrogant bastard (I’m assuming the incident with royalty was before the mental break down since it was early on). He doesn’t care about obeying rules or insulting people so without the skill there was nothing to keep him in check.

Because the way it ends up working in these types of web novels is a skill helps account for and correct error or automate things. Magic skills automate the casting, sword art skills automate the motions needed to perform the skill, and the court etiquette skill likely served to make one instinctively aware of what was proper behavior.

it’s possible to behave even without the skill but having the skill helps you do it better or more easily. But the count relied on his skills so heavily that he became incapable of doing any of the things related to those skills. He never properly memorized court etiquette he just somehow gained and leveled up the skill and let it do all the work.

One part still bugs me, Sword shishou (who leaves the talking to Fran and just advices her) taking the skill that makes one’s lies harder to see through. Wouldn’t the person who might have occasional need to lie have more use for the skill? I know they were testing [Skill Taker] but Shishou could’ve had Fran try first in consideration of that.

…Although a sword with Court Etiquette would’ve been silly as well, huh?

How often would she need to lie? She barely speaks. Having an advisor that can see through lies is much better then being able to see through them yourself. You can see what happened to Auguste when he had the skill, he started to always depend on it and lost the ability to read people for himself. He was also able to say anything he wanted as the skill would reinforce his intentions.

Fran is still young. Best for her to develop her own feel for people and only have the skill used when it becomes critical.